Many individuals own vehicles such as trucks with beds, and use said vehicles to haul or transport articles, such as all terrain vehicles, motorcycles, tractors, lawnmowers, and virtually any other type of article that will fit in a truck bed. However, one difficulty in transporting such articles is loading and/or unloading the article into the elevated truck bed, which can be both time-consuming and dangerous.
One device known in the art for assisting an individual to load and/or unload an article into a truck bed is a tailgate ramp. Most tailgate ramps extend at an angle between the ground surface and the elevated tailgate, and are useful for driving or pushing an article from the ground surface, up the tailgate ramp, and into the truck bed. Likewise, the tailgate ramp may also be used to assist an individual to drive or push an article from the truck bed (or other elevated surface), down the tailgate ramp, and onto the ground surface.
Notwithstanding the above stated benefits of tailgate ramps, one problem commonly associated with the use of a tailgate ramp is the tendency of the ramp to prematurely detach from the vehicle during the loading and/or unloading of the article, which can be dangerous and cause serious injury to the user and significant damage to the article being loaded/unloaded and/or the vehicle.
Consequently, there exists in the art a long-felt need for a safety strap device that can be used to temporarily, but securely, attach a prior art tailgate ramp to a vehicle, such as a pickup truck with a tailgate. There also exists in the art a long felt need for a safety strap device that is adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of tail gate ramps, vehicles and possible applications. Finally, there is a long-felt need for a safety strap device that accomplishes all of the forgoing objectives and that is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, and safe and easy to use.
The present invention provides vehicle owners (e.g., pick-up truck owners) with a quick and safe way to mount and secure tailgate ramps to a tailgate, and reduces the likelihood that the ramps will prematurely detach from the tailgate during use. The present invention also reduces the amount of time it takes to set up the tailgate ramps, and the likelihood that the safety strap device will be misplaced or lost when not in use.